A Colometric Arrangement of Cicero Author(s): Charles J. Robbins Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Oct. - Nov.

, 1979), pp. 57-62 Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3296837 . Accessed: 23/11/2013 09:10
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A COLOMETRIC ARRANGEMENTOF CICERO In the introduction to his new translation of the ProphetIsaiah, SaintJerome statedthatit was customaryin his day to publishthe worksof Demosthenesand Cicero colometrically, or as he puts it, per cola et commata: sed quod in Demosthene et Tullio solet fieri, et commata, ut per cola scribantur non et versibus scripserunt... qui utique prosa but as is customarilydone with Demosthenes and Cicero, to write them out in cola and commata, though they certainly wrote prose and not verse . Biblia Sacra I, Prolegomena It is the purposeof this paperto show how Cicero would look writtencolometrically, using primarilyas a sample the exordiumof his Third OrationAgainst Catiline. It will be necessary first to examine briefly the principlesthat went into the structureof artisticprose. Classical Greek and Latin prose was modeled after epic poetry, so that the function that was served by the verse in poetry was performedby the colon in prose. In his work On Style, Demetriustells us (1.1): "As poetryis divided by measures such as the hemistich, the hexameterand the like, so also is prose colon was aboutthe length style dividedby whatarecalled cola." The standard of a dactylic hexameter,thoughit could be longer or shorter. When it was the length of a dactylic hexameter,it was, like the verse, usually composedof two groupsof wordsthatwhen properlyphrasedcreateda caesura. Demetrius(1.3) goes on to tell us that the opening sentence of Xenophon's Anabasis is composed of two cola. We observe that each is aboutthe length of a dactylic hexameter,and thateach has a well defined caesura, which I have indicatedin the first colon by an asterisk;the punctuationindicatesit in the second colon. HlapvoarLto*iYylto'rTaL ,Tat8E 8& VE rpEo-7rEpo0 .UEv 'Ap'radpS'r, EjrCpo Ki3po,. Of Darius and Parysatiswere born two children, the elder was Artaxerxes, the younger Cyrus. Since emphasis follows or precedes a pause or letup in reading, there are four places for emphasis in the colon, namely the beginning and the end of each half-colon or semi-colon. This can be easily seen in the sentence above from Xenophon. As is clear from the second colon in the sentenceabove, it was not necessary 57

AapEov xa

U 6i9o,

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thatthe colon be a single phraseor clause, butit could consist of severalphrases as long as together they constituted some kind of unity. In the following sentence from Cicero's De Senectute(54), consisting of four short cola, the thirdcolon containsboth the subjectand the verb. The otherthreepossess their patternandpartlybecause identityfromthe fact thateach has a unifiedrhythmic each constitutes, in a general way at least, a category of plants and shrubs. Because the cola are short, we do not expect to find a distinct caesura. Nec vero segetibus solum et pratis et vineis et arbustis res rusticae laetae sunt sed hortis etiam et pomariis. But not only in wheatfields and meadows and vineyards and woodlands is farming a source of joy but also in gardens and orchards. Something less than a colon was called a comma, which means literally a chip. Demetrius(1.9) says simply: "A comma is commonly defined as that which is less than a colon." The comma was sometimes used to connect the two parts of a period, as the ut in this saying from Seneca: Ingenti providentiaposuit Deus in oculis visum et fletum ut qui delictum committuntvidendo poenas exsolvant plorando. In his great providence God put vision and tears in the eyes that those who commit sin throughseeing might wash away the punishmentthroughweeping. The cola were put togetherin groups called periods. The word comes from two Greek words, 7rTpi and 6860, and means a circular path as used for racing. Aristotle(Rhetoric 3.9.3) defines a periodthus: "By a periodI mean a passage that has a beginning and an end in itself and a magnitudethat can be easily grasped." "The definition," says Demetrius (1.11), "is good and fitting. For the very use of the word 'period' implies that there has been a beginning at one point and will be an ending at another, and that we are hasteningtowardsa definite goal as runnersdo when they leave the startingandcertainly place." Thougha periodcould have moreor fewer, the standard, the length of a ideal, period had four membersor cola, each approximating dactylic hexameter. Cicero says: "The full, comprehensiveperiodconsists of approximatelyfour parts which we call members . . . The period, then, consists of four members, each approximatelyequal to a hexameterverse."

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THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL

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(Orator 65.221-222) But Cicero warnsthatwhat he calls the full, comprehensive periodis not to be used consistently, otherwiseit will become monotonous and the audience will begin to doubtthe sincerityof the speaker. (Orator 61. 207-209) The principles governing the composition of the colon and the period are illustratedin this sentencefromCicero's ThirdOrationAgainstCatiline(9.22). The quo is a commabecauseit is simply a transitionword. We have herea full, comprehensive period, consisting of four cola, each about the length of a dactylic hexameterandeach with a well definedcaesura. Some of the emphatic words clusteraboutthe middleof the lines at the beginningand the ends of the half-cola. Again the asteriskindicatesthe position of the caesura. The period, like all periods, must be read in one breath. Quo etiam maiore sunt isti*odio supplicioque digni qui non solum vestris*domiciliis atque tectis sed etiam deorum*templisatque delubris sunt funestos ac nefarios*ignis inferre conati. Wherefore those men are worthy of even greaterhatredand punishment who not only upon your homes and dwellings but also upon the temples and shrines of the gods have attemptedto bring destructiveand impious fires. In the two middle cola we have a double contrast:vestris with deorum, and domiciliis atque tectis with templisatque delubris. Because of the pause at the caesura, setting off the semi-colon, the contrastswork out very nicely. We have a kind of book-endarrangement with sunt at one end of the last colon and conati at the other, binding in everything between. Note shouldbe takenof the magnificentrhythmof the lines. The wordsflow without a hitch from beginning to end. Rhythm was one of the essential elements of artistic prose. It is not the measured rhythm of verse, but the harmoniouscombinationof words and sounds. Cicero (Orator 198) tells us that, "Every passage which does not halt or waver, but advancessteadily and uniformly, is consideredrhythmical." But the rhythmcannot be adequately recapturedunless we know where the period begins and ends, and especially where the colon begins and ends. That is one reason for arrangingtexts colometrically. Anotherbasic notion of the period was that it had to be shortenough to be spoken in one breath. Speaking of the length of the period, Quintilian(Institutio Oratoria 9.4.125) says: "According to Cicero, its length should be restrictedto the equivalentof four senariior the compass of a single breath." Speaking for himself Cicero says: "It was failureor scantiness of breaththat and pauses between words;but now that this has originatedperiodic structure once been discovered, it is so attractivethat, even if a person were endowed with breaththat never failed, we should not wish him to deliver an unbroken flow of words." (De Oratore 3.46.181) And yet thereare many sentences in

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Latin that cannot be spoken in one breath, which fact tells us that the terms sentence and period are not synonymous. Many sentences break up into subordinate units, each a completepartcomposedof closely connectedcola and confined to "the compass of a single breath." The last unit always concludes the total thought in a strict periodic fashion. If we returnnow to the complete sentence of Saint Jeromefrom which we quoted a part at the beginning of the paper, we can see that it illustratesthe natureof subordinate periods. It falls into two unitsor subordinate periods, the first consisting of three cola, and the second of five. The second unit, as happensat times also in Cicero, is composedbasically of four cola, with a fifth one between the second and third as a kind of parentheticalthought. Where thereis a clearcaesuraI have indicatedit with an asterisk. It will be seen thatthe emphaticwordsgenerallyare at the beginningandend of each half-colon. The readerwill pause for breathafterthe first unit, at the colon punctuation mark. Nemo cum prophetas*versibus viderit esse descriptos metro eos existimet*apudHebraeos ligari et aliquid simile habere*dePsalmis et operibus Salomonis: sed quod in Demosthene*etTullio solet fieri ut per cola scribantur et commataqui utique prosa*et non versibus scripseruntnos quoque, utilitati legentium providentes, novam*novo scribendigenere distinximus. interpretationem No one, when he sees the prophets writtenout in verses, should think that they are bound by meter among the Hebrews or anythingsimilar about the Psalms and the works of Solomon: but as is customarilydone with Demosthenes and Cicero namely to write them out in cola and commatathough of course they wrote in prose and not versewe too, looking to the convenience of our readers, have divided our new translationin the new mannerof writing. We are now preparedto present the exordium of Cicero's Third Oration Against Catiline. The first sentence falls into two periods of four cola each, separated by the emphaticcomma hodiernodie. The second sentencealso falls into two periodsof fourcola each, separated commaprofecto. by the transition The readerwill pause for breathafterthe first unit in each sentence. The third sentence consists of a single period of four cola. Each of the five units or periods, so far, is whatCicerocalls a full, comprehensiveperiod, composedof fourcola, each aboutthe lengthof a dactylic hexameter. The last sentencefalls into two periodsseparated by the comma ut. Here the periodsarecomposedof only threecola, which in turnare mostly shorterthandactylichexameters.The taperingoff in the lengthof periodsandcola, we may surmise, was to give both speakerandaudiencea respitefromthe demandsof the long cola andperiodsof the precedingpart. An English translation,made colon by colon, follows the

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Latin. This is to show that the thought order is nearly the same in both languages, and that this, therefore, is another reason to believe that this particulardivision into cola is probablythe correct one. Rem publicam, Quirites, vitamque omnium vestrum, bona, fortunas, coniuges, liberosque vestros atque hoc domicilium clarissimi imperi, urbem: fortunatissimam pulcherrimamque hodierno die deorum immortaliumsummo erga vos amore, laboribus, consiliis, periculis meis, e flamma atque ferro ac paene ex faucibus fati ereptam et vobis conservatamac restitutamvidetis. Et si non minus nobis iucundi atque illustres sunt et dies quibus conservamurquam illi quibus nascimur quod salutis certa laetitia est, nascendi incertacondicio, et quod sine sensu nascimur, cum voluptate servamur: profecto quoniam illum qui hanc urbem condidit ad deos immortalesbenevolentia famaque sustulimus, esse apud vos posterosquevestros in honore debebit is qui eandem hanc urbem conditam amplificatamqueservavit. Nam toti urbi, templis, delubris, tectis ac moenibus subiectos prope iam ignis circumdatosquerestinximus, idemque gladios in rem publicam destrictosretuddimus mucronesqueeorum a iugulis vestris deiecimus. Quae, quoniam in senatu illustrata,patefacta, compertasunt per me, vobis iam exponam breviter, Quirites: ut et quantaet quam manifesta et qua ratione investigata et comprehensasint vos, qui et ignoratiset exspectatis, scire possitis. The State, 0 citizens, and the lives of all of you, your property,fortunes, wives and children, this home of the most illustrious government, the most fortunateand most magnificentcity: on this day by the unrivaledlove of the immortalgods for you, by my labors, plans, and perils, rescued from fire and sword and almost from the jaws of fate you see preservedand restoredto you.

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And if to us no less pleasant and illustrious are those days on which we are saved than those on which we are born, because the joy of safety is certain, the condition of birthuncertain and because we are born without perception, but saved with pleasure: certainly then since him who founded this city we have raised to the immortalgods with affection and praise, among you and your posterity he will need to be held in honor who saved this same city founded and grown great. For we have extinguishedthe fires that were set and almost surrounded the whole city, the temples, shrines, dwellings, and walls, and the swords drawn against the state we have also struck down and their sharppoints we have turnedaside from your throats. Since in the Senate these events were disclosed, made clear, and recountedby me, I will now briefly lay them before you, O citizens: in order that how great and how manifest they are and by what means they were sought out and suppressed you, who are uninformedand eager for news, can know. can be made, in varyingdegrees, with This kind of colometricarrangement all the classical prose writers-and ought to be made. It would be doing Virgil and Shakespeare a grave injusticeif we were to printtheirlines in a continuous fashion without regardto verses. It is equally an injustice to classical prose writers to print them straight out, using only grammaticalpunctuation, in help disregardof the carefullycomposedcola andperiods. Whata tremendous it would be to studentsin learningandto teachersandscholarsin explainingthe classics if we were to write them out, in Saint Jerome's words, per cola et commata. CHARLESJ. ROBBINS Saint Joseph's College, Rensselaer, Indiana

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